


232. warpaint

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [340]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 07:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11099343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Westmorland’s mansion is a glittering shape in the distance, surrounded by dark woodland. A guard at the door, Cosima had said. More guards inside, Cosima had said. Don’t do this, Cosima had said, there has to be another way. But there isn’t. Everyone had said there was another way except Helena, who had just laughed and said she could come along.





	232. warpaint

“ _Sestra_ Alison says she has Kira safe,” Helena says, the glow of her phone lighting only the alien angles of her face – before the turns the phone off, and everything goes dark again. “Everyone is safe, Sarah. _Sestra_ Alison says she has her gun.”

“Good,” Sarah says, and cocks her own. Westmorland’s mansion is a glittering shape in the distance, surrounded by dark woodland. A guard at the door, Cosima had said. More guards inside, Cosima had said. Don’t do this, Cosima had said, there has to be another way. But there isn’t. Everyone had said there was another way except Helena, who had just laughed and said she could come along.

So here they are, moving through the dark. Helena moves weirdly light on her feet – either Sarah forgot how light Helena could move before pregnancy rounded her out, or Helena forgot and is overcompensating. Either way. Sarah doesn’t want to lose her; the feeling is a constant echo-ache inside of her stomach and chest.

“You can still go back,” she says, but the words aren’t even out of her mouth before Helena gives her a capital-l Look.

“And if I go back,” she says, stepping carefully around branches and trees, her voice a hushed murmur, “what will I say to them. I left my sister alone in the dark and I took a buzz-bird home and now can we have pancakes please. No, Sarah, you can make everyone else leave you but you cannot make me leave you. We came into this world together. Did you forget?”

Yes, Sarah forgot. She remembers it now and it hurts. She wishes she had the memory of it. Who came out first? Which one of them left the other one behind, and which one of them had to struggle alone towards the waiting world?

This should fix it. This has to fix it. One last hydra head to burn, and then – something.

“Helena,” Sarah says. Helena doesn’t say anything, but the air sharpens with listening.

“After this,” Sarah says. “What are we gonna – do.”

“Go home,” Helena says. “Say that we did it. Have pancakes.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“I know,” Helena says. “I could say other things but they would just be stories. I don’t know. Who we will be. After this. When it is done.”

Around the back of the house the hill is less steep, and they head that way – moving in a snake-curve up the hill, towards the night sky with no hint of sun. “I’m scared,” Sarah says, hoping the cracks of the branches cover it. They don’t, but she knew they wouldn’t.

Silence. Helena says, hesitant: “I am also scared. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sarah says. “Of course you’re scared, of course—” she realizes her own hypocrisy, shuts her mouth. She can tell Helena also realizes it because she huffs out a breath of a laugh and keeps moving forward.

“I was always scared before,” she says thoughtfully, “but I always did it anyways. So I do not think this matters much.”

It’s weirdly comforting. Sarah has been scared every time, and has never managed – it – it, the thing that they are here to do. That thing. She hasn’t done it. There was only one time when she pulled the trigger, and the result of that is climbing ahead of her up the hill with a loaded gun. So it’s nice that at least one of them will be able to breathe through it, be able to follow through.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Sarah says. “Sorry. If I was a good sister I woulda made you stay home, and taken care of this myself.”

“Well,” Helena says. “It is good for both of us then that I am a _very_ good sister, and did not let you do this thing alone.” She steps over a particularly large branch on the ground, keeps going. “We are balanced. You are a shit sister and I am not a shit sister and so between us we are both just sisters.”

That’s a shitty reason for Sarah to start crying, isn’t it. She should save the tears for when they really matter – they’re going to matter in a bit, she knows it. There is no scenario she can believe in where she doesn’t end up, at best, crying her eyes out.

Doesn’t matter. The world blurs, and she stumbles. She does not fall. But. She stumbles.

“You’re right,” she says, voice wavering. “You’re a – really good sister, Helena. Thanks for saving me from my own shit.”

“Many welcomes,” Helena says, and then stops, and turns around. Sarah’s eyes have adjusted enough to the dark that she can see the outline of Helena’s face, but can’t read any feeling on it. “Oh,” Helena says, a round breath. Then she steps forward and puts her hands on Sarah’s face, tilts Sarah’s head forward so her forehead bumps against Helena’s.

“Thank _you_ ,” she says. “For being my sister. Was only joke. You are the best sister I could have gotten, I think.”

Sarah is full-on crying now, here in the dark, too close and not close enough to the house where surely this whole thing is going to end. She clings to Helena’s wrist and weeps – for Kira tucked behind Alison’s gun, for the worried crease between Cosima’s eyebrows, for the sad smile S had given her before she’d left, for Helena. She cries for the two of them, Sarah and Helena, and the way that there are spaces between them.

“I love you,” she says. She sucks in snot and keeps going. “If you don’t—” but she can’t say it, and she stops. “We’re gonna be fine,” she says instead.

“Of course, Sarah,” Helena says, dragging the syllables into the space between truth and lying.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, and leans back; cold air rushes into the space between them. “Yeah,” she says again, wiping tears and snot from her face and shaking her head a bit. “We’re gonna…” Abruptly she runs out of steam. She sways on her feet for a bit and then looks at Helena, standing there motionless and watching her in the dark.

“Let’s keep going,” Sarah says. “Almost there.”

“Yes,” Helena says. She looks past Sarah towards the black dome of the sky. “The sun will rise soon,” she says, and turns to keep walking towards the house. Sarah looks where Helena was looking and doesn’t see any hint of light, just an endless dark ache. But if Helena says the sun will come up soon, it will come up soon. Sarah just has to believe in it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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